


money doesn't do it when your dreams are worse than your nightmares

by orphan_account



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Genius Tony Stark, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Pansexual Tony Stark, Pining, Pining Tony Stark, Pre-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, basically just tony being sad and me being sad and oh god i need sleep, canon deviation?, everything is sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2020-03-26 18:35:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19011526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: me, writing because i need to fill the void that endgame has left in my heartor:For the first time, after nights and nights sitting awake in the dark, Tony Stark knows what he wants. Unfortunately, it's out of his reach.





	money doesn't do it when your dreams are worse than your nightmares

**Author's Note:**

> I know I promised some fluffy Stony but I kinda hit a wall so now we have angsty one-sided Stony. 
> 
> t/w for suicidal thoughts and panic attacks? 
> 
> (I'm really bad at trigger warnings so like if you're concerned please just don't read i don't want anyone to get hurt-)
> 
> also, i don't think i've mentioned this before, but i definitely don't have a beta so all my mistakes are indeed, my mistakes. don't come for my wig, just let me know if there's a glaring error so i can polish it out of sight, out of mind :)

Money doesn't really cut it at four in the morning when you're lonely as fuck and contemplating leaping off the balcony attached to your penthouse bedroom in the middle of Manhattan.

Of course, money was giving you access to the balcony, so perhaps it did do something. Added a bit of flair to those suicidal thoughts. The spicy touch of plummeting 1130 feet really did it for him.

He was leaning against the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the city, bright with twinkling lights fighting against the darkness of night. Far below him, cars flashed by, nothing but the glowing dots and streaks of headlights and traffic lights. The rain drummed on his windows, putting him in a half trance as he watched the droplets of water streak down the glass. A distant sound of thunder echoed, but he couldn't see any lightning. In his own room, the lights were off apart from a single, small digital clock.

Tony wished for dawn. It was all he ever wished for these days, apart from wishing for the thing keeping him up. The thing he'd forbade himself from thinking about. He scowled darkly at nothing. At himself. At the goddamn clock. His breath hitched in his throat and he fought to calm himself. Fucking hell, he really wasn't doing exceptional.

In, out.

In, out.

Fuck.

Calm and steady breaths. That was how he survived the nights. How he survived the days. How he survived anything and everything at this point. Just the breathing and the knowledge that if he broke in public, his friends would freak out on him. After they'd been alerted to his sleepless nights (far too many to be healthy, apparently, although it was fairly normal for him), Jarvis, Pepper, and Rhodey had made a collective decision to bully him into good health.

Less drinking, which he privately agreed with but protested anyways, for the sake of protesting. Honestly, the amount of alcohol he'd been consuming wasn't the best.

Less coffee, which he was very angry about. They'd told him to drink milky decaf, of all things. What was the point of coffee if it wasn't black and loaded to the brim with caffeine?

But the worst thing they'd done was try to make him sleep. Or at least, confine him to his bedroom and force Jarvis to not give him access to his tech except in the case of life-threatening emergencies. The shutdown lasted from midnight to six in the morning, supposedly giving him the opportunity to get six full hours of sleep. Unfortunately, none of them had factored in his complete refusal to slide into a state of unconsciousness.

Pepper had sent him tea that was meant to help him sleep, digital files of white noises like rain and quiet static sounds. He'd even received some sort of weird diffuser with scented oils, which he'd immediately taken apart upon deliver just for fun. Jarvis had set reminders every two hours for him to take a break (which he ignored), and Rhodey had gone so far as to attempt to drug him. They'd had an argument about that once Tony discovered the subterfuge with Jarvis's help. Rhodey had backed off, leaving Tony alone.

Alone.

Sitting awake, unbothered but listless in the face of empty hours.

So he sat.

In the darkness of his room illuminated by city lights casting tall shadows and figures.

Alone.

He sat without the distractions he craved and tried to not give in to the irrational fears, the dreams that he couldn't stop, the shaking and the crying and the way his lungs constricted and the air was disappearing faster than he could suck it in- In, out. In, out. Because that was what Tony thrived on. Building and creating, designing new things every single day just to block out the nightmares lurking around every corner, threatening to pull him down until there was no light, no way out. He'd always had bad days, but the distractions had always helped.

Now, there was just nothing. Telling Rhodey and Pepper that he needed access to the internet so he didn't have a full-on mental breakdown each night would probably concern them far too much, however, so he said nothing. He bore the punishments, weathered the nights, counted breaths, in and out.

In and out.

Even in spite of all the articles he'd read on regulating his breathing to remain calm, the lessons he'd memorized on not breaking down in the face of terrifying nothingness, the training he'd done on little exercises that were meant to slow the rapid-fire onset of scared and afraid that slammed into him like a bullet when it was dark.

Even in spite of all that.

Sometimes, he still broke.

Fortunately, tonight wasn't a bad night. At least not one of his worst. There was still the itch in the back of his mind, the fidgeting of his hands, clasped in his lap for lack of material to fiddle with, and the need to fix something. But it was softer, dulled out for once. His guard dropped slightly and he let his shoulders relax from their stiffened position. The rain helped, he thought. It was useful in this way. Peaceful.

And then his thoughts drifted from the 'in, out' and to the dreams he'd had before he decided to stop sleeping. A bad decision, really. There was, after all, a very good reason he'd done his best to not think about it.

Dreams and nightmares. At this point he almost preferred the nightmares. Death and pain and tears and his friends falling, falling, falling to where he couldn't bring them back from were preferable to the things he did in his dreams. Visions of the possible future were much favoured compared to the unattainability of his dreams.  
  
In his dreams, he fucked Steve Rogers, Captain America, golden boy super-soldier.   
  
Or was fucked by him. The dreams were persistent, almost ridiculously so. At first, he'd been disgusted. Then, mildly amused. But when the dreams turned from the filthiest sex - really, a kinky Captain America was definitely R-rated - to actual romance, he'd gotten worried.   
  
Tony Stark. Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist supreme. Tony was many things, but he did not do  _romance._ He wasn't good with feelings and had enough emotional intelligence to understand that he shouldn't tangle with them, shouldn't play with other people, if he couldn't get them, wasn't good with them. Tony Stark was casual hookups and one night stands, meetings at classy charity events, dimly lit bars, nightclubs.   
  
He lived for the sex, and the thrill, and the no-strings aspect of it all. But an actual, committed, not-entirely-sex-based relationship?  
  
The thought would have made him laugh if he wasn't so fucking consumed with fear by it. If he wasn't all too sure that Steve wouldn't want him. He wasn't even sure if he wanted Steve at all. His dreams seemed to say so, but his conscious mind knew better than to get romantically or even sexually involved with a member of the team, especially Steve 'face of the Americas' Rogers.   
  
Tony remembered the beginning, when the dreams had first started and he was only a bit uncomfortable and mildly amused. That had been nice. So naturally out of curiosity, he'd casually hinted at his ability to 'swing all ways' near Steve during a conversation with Bruce at breakfast.   
  
He hadn't missed the expression on Rogers's face. It was all too recognizable, really. The surprise. The disgust. The speed at which he hid said disgust. The mask of not hearing but secretly judging. Cap fortunately wasn't one to pick a fight over something like this, which Tony knew all too well. He would never have said anything otherwise, too afraid to test the waters.  
  
Evidently, the waters were boiling acid. He couldn't blame Steve for being disgusted. Hell, his early days had been rough. Tony had most definitely not been a supported kid, and the experience left him raw and utterly uncomfortable in his own skin. Now, in modern times, with parents dead and unable to judge and the freedom to do whatever he wanted, it was much better. At least he no longer wanted to shoot himself for finding a guy fuckable. But Steve hadn't been around for the times of change. He'd been frozen in the ice for seventy years, after all. It made sense that he wasn't comfortable, that he wasn't open to Tony's blatant lack of fucks to give for the gender of whoever was in his bed each night.   
  
The logical decision, obviously, was to hide the dreams. Hide the emotion, hide his attraction, hide the fear and the embarrassing truth of the issue and the tear this would cause in the already delicate friendship/mutual respect that the team had built from the ground up with blood, sweat, and tears. And Tony was nothing if not logical when it truly mattered. Risk taking, definitely. But logic prevailed in the end. It always did.  
  
He was waiting again. Waiting for dawn, for the sun to grace his eyes with light, hide his problems and burn his fears to the ground. For the night's horrors to bleed away, and his insecurities to go with it. Because Tony Stark couldn't have insecurities. That wasn't who he was, wasn't what he needed to be for himself, his friends, his team, the world. For the world, he needed to be perfect. Not Steve Rogers perfect, obviously, but Stark perfect. Bad boy with a touch of mad genius and a splash of unapologetic flirt. Not the shattered man he buried underneath technology and the Iron Man suit.   
  
It was 4:55. The storm had ceased and the sun was supposed to rise at 5:42, according to estimates, the internet, and his own observations over the course of many nights staring out the window and checking the time the moment a hint of sun was revealed. It was almost a miracle he survived each night, really. Turns out being separated from technology for six whole hours wouldn't kill him. At least not physically. Mentally, he died every time.   
  
If he was to be perfectly honest, however, the time away was nice. Weirdly quiet and boring, but also somehow nice. It forced him to reflect and confront, not invent to run away from his problems. And on this night, he'd at long last come to a conclusion. The honest truth of everything, the real, genuine emotions. Something he hadn't faced in a while, mostly because Tony Stark was a damn coward. He wasn't here to insult himself right now, though. He was here facing facts. 

Tony was almost completely sure Steve didn't have any sort of attraction to him. It wasn't definitive, things like this rarely were, but it was unlikely enough that Tony wouldn't be able to respect himself if he continued to pursue a relationship with him, romantic or sexual. Embarrassment was second nature at this point, but letting Steve realize Tony, a member of his team, wanted to shove his cock up Steve's ass didn't exactly bode well for morale. Not to mention that Tony was on the side of 'Steve Rogers is an absolute virgin' in the betting pool. From the research he'd read before Tony had met Cap, the man hadn't exactly had much time to get with someone in the sheets. Especially not with a man. 

None of this was incredibly upsetting to him. Or at least Tony was good at lying to himself and pretending he wasn't that upset about it. Because he did understand the lack of mutual attraction, after the many women who had become incensed with rage when he told them, honestly and more or less kindly, that he didn't want to go on a date after they'd had sex. Sure, he hadn't been the most gentle or understanding, often getting Pepper to shoo them out if they protested for too long, but he had never-would never-could never be cruel. And now he was on their side, except he hadn't even gotten a night of sex with Rogers aside from his dreams.   
  
But as confusing as Cap's opinion of him was to decipher, it was now time for Tony's conclusion on his own opinions of the super-soldier.   
  
He liked Steve. Not just because of the sex dreams, although those definitely did a number on him. Hell, if he'd known his unconscious brain was that creative in its fantasies, he would have done something about it before now. But he knew that he wanted to be with Steve. Tony genuinely cared about all the weird shit Rogers did, all the hobbies and interests and the reminiscing about old days, all the selfless bullshit he spouted because he was just that fucking  _noble_. All of it. Even the stupidly positive pep-talks before a mission. Tony wanted all of that. Wanted to date him, wanted to be able to kiss him just because that was something he could do, want to love him.  
  
And wanted to be loved back, he realized.  
  
The sun was beginning to rise and the room grew steadily brighter. Thunder, rain, and lightning had all faded away, leaving the skies clear and a pale, almost delicate blue. The clock beeped for 6am, and Jarvis came online, unnoticed by the contemplative man sitting on the floor.   
  
Tony wanted to be loved for the first time in a long time.  
  
"Because really, isn't that all anyone wants?"  
  
Jarvis spoke, his voice filling the room, first words of the morning spoken in a tone of confusion. "Pardon me, sir?"  
  
Tony shook his head, staring into space with his mind farther away than it had been in a while. "Nothing, J."   
  
Lonely, genius, billionaire lover boy Tony Stark started his day, knowing it would end with another night just like this.   
  
Pining for the same thing he'd been denied for so long.

Pining for a captain who would never want Tony the way Tony wanted him.  
  
Pining, as all mortals do, for love. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading, drop kudos and comments if you want <3
> 
> If I don't get distracted, there might be actual fluff in my next post so keep an eye on this account if you're interested?
> 
> I'm so sorry i'm a slut for angst


End file.
